Earlier this month the Pikes Peak Rural Transportation Authority (PPRTA) and the City of Colorado Springs Street Division placed a test section of terminal blend tire rubber asphalt (TBTRA) and slag on Voyager Parkway. The City is testing slag, a by-product created during steel production in Pueblo, because it is an extremely hard aggregate made from 100-percent recycled material. Combined with TBTRA, which uses recycled tires blended into the asphalt oil, the test section on Voyager Parkway uses 96 percent recycled components overall.

A Department of Energy grant is allowing the City to do something unusual these days. It?s allowing the City to keep some streetlights lit; both now and for a decade into the future. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, provided by American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, is financing a pilot project to replace some traditional City-managed, metered, streetlights with low-energy LED streetlights.

Building roads is dirty work, literally and environmentally. Yet, it?s a core service that must be provided to citizens for both public safety and quality of life. So, how can road construction decision-makers and community members incorporate the core sustainability principles of: ecology, equity, and economy? Greenroads, a creation of CH2MHILL and the University of Washington, is a new LEED-like rating system that allows a project to earn points, a certification rating, and public recognition based on following the very latest best practices. Project Manager Dirk Draper, Vice President of the CH2MHill Colorado Springs Office, will present the Greenroads rating system on July 29, 2010. The lunch-n-learn runs over the noon lunch hour, from 12:11 to 12: 49 p.m., at the City Administration Building, 30 S. Nevada, in Suite 102. Attendees are encouraged to bring and enjoy their lunches during the presentation. Those who come have the opportunity to win a door prize tote bag made from recycled City banners. Click here for more information.